By Newsmata
The Court of Appeal sitting in Akure, the Ondo State capital on Thursday upheld the death sentence of a multi-millionaire businessman and hotelier, Dr. Ramon Adedoyin, who was convicted for the murder of Timothy Adegoke, 37, a former Master’s degree student of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.
Upholding the verdict of the Osun State High Court which found Adedoyin guilty of murder, the appellate court, which had on October 29, 2024 reserved judgement, said: “The judgement of the High Court of Ọ̀ṣun State stands. Adedoyin’s appeal is dismissed in part. The Court of Appeal held that Adedoyin was properly convicted and sentenced to death.”
The court however declared the “Order of forfeiture of Hilton Hotel quashed and set aside. Order of education scholarship to children of Timothy Adegoke by Adedoyin and others quashed and set aside.”
Newsmata recalls that Adegoke was found dead on a refuse site on Sunday November 7, 2021 at Adedoyin’s Hilton Honours Hotel, Ile-Ife, where he had checked into on November 5.
On January 29, 2022, the former Master’s student of Business Administration was buried beside the house he built for his parents in the New Eruwa part of Eruwa town, in Ibarapa East Local Government Area of Oyo State.
His widow, Bolatito, was inconsolable and would not leave the graveside despite pleas that she should step aside.
In March 2022, Afeez Olaniyan, the Investigative Police Officer, (IPO) who undertook the first probe into Adegoke’s death, recounted how some defendants arraigned in connection with the deceased’s death, evacuated and dumped his remains in the bush.
Led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, M. Omosun, during the trial, Olaniyan said from the statement extracted from two of the staffers of the Hilton Hotels–Adeniyi Aderogba and Oyetunde Kazeem, after the death of the late Adegoke, his corpse was put in a carton and wrapped with a duvet, and taken out in a Hilux van driven by the son of the hotel owner, Roheem Adedoyin, to the point where it was dumped.
Olaniyan further told the court that: “There was doctoring of the hotel documents which the original one was later discovered from Adesola’s phone. Circumstances that surrounded the death was highly suspicious and that was why the corpse was deposited for expert opinion to ascertain the cause of the death.
“I visited room 305 where the deceased was lodged. It was observed that the mattress inside the room was new compared to the ones in the other rooms. I asked why the new mattress. The response was that the hotel was initially known to be Hotel Di Ganga and the taken over necessitated the changes of some of the mattresses”.
A consultant pathologist at the Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Dr Waheed Oluogun, testified that Adegoke’s death was caused by severe haemorrhage secondary to severe traumatic injury.